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What if HE decides he WANTS to go to college? You have advocated freedom of choice. What if he decides he wants that experience, that degree. Will you prevent him?</p>
<p>And btw, if you don’t like the curriculum your school offers, get involved and offer to do something. MAny schools, especially private schools, are happy to have parents research what other resources are out there to augment their programs. Don’t just complain- get involved.</p>
<p>I would discourage him, of course. But I would support him if he wants to go that route. He would be wasting a rare talent which is a crime in my mind. But I also believe in free will. I doubt though that he will go to college. He has pretty much made up his mind to be a composer and a concert pianist. Excpt he doesn’t want to work hard to achieve that, which is fixable, as he has a tiger mom.</p>
<p>It is not a matter of resources. It is about pushing the kids, HARD. There is a real reluctance in this country to push kids hard.</p>
<p>IP reminds me of Ayn Rand…</p>
<p>Why!? No one ever told me that I remind them of Rand. I haven’t even read anything written by Rand and I still despise her.</p>
<p>Why would you “despise” (harsh word) someone whose writings you know nothing about? Sounds awfully jaded.</p>
<p>I read the New York Review of Books version. But, come now, everyone knows what Randian politics stands for.</p>
<p>Why don’t you share your perception/understanding of her politics so your reaction is understood.</p>
<p>It’s despicable.</p>
<p>Now, how do I ask my son’s teachers to push him much, much harder? The school gives limited amount of homework. We were looking at other schools and one of the school brochures very apologitically noted that they give homework every day. My son’s face lit up. Then he read the course descriptions and looked bored and sad. </p>
<p>When I think about it, we are in effect homeschooling him with all the tutors plus the coaching he gets from us. School is for social interaction. I guess that’s a good deal. However, we may be making the boredom problem worse by teaching him stuff far above his grade level by US standards.</p>
<p>I don’t have an answer for you, but I think it’s quite insightful of you to recognize that your discomfort asking the teacher to push your son more is related to your cultural upbringing.</p>
<p>I would suggest that it not be using the words “push my son more,” as that has overtones here of “my goal is to push this kid as far as I possibly can” and that conjures up visions (here) of an overbearing, never-satisfied parent which we view as a Bad Thing. I might use words like “enrichment” or “satisfying his thirst for knowledge” instead. I</p>
<p>t would also come across better if it came across as your son being the driver (that is, your son is expressing boredom, wants more challenge, wants to dive deeper or faster into an area of interest) versus you being the driver (you want the school to push him more).</p>
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That doesn’t answer my question at all. I am completely serious and would appreciate hearing your understanding of her politics in order to better understand your reaction. Please explain thoroughly, not with a flip one word blow off comment.</p>
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<p>Yes, you may be. Does he ever get to be a kid? Ride bikes, hang out with friends, etc.? Do not underestimate the value of that stuff, too. Life is not a race to accumulate as much knowledge as possible before the age of 18. Sometimes you seem too focused on the race. You know, all that math, musical knowledge, etc. is there – it doesn’t have to be learned right this minute, he’s got his life to learn it all.</p>
<p>Rand was a believer is laissez-faire capitalism. That is completely ridiculous. Any economist - even those in the Fridman camp - would tell you that we need rules and regulations as otherwise unbridled capitalism eats the host and causes the likes of the Great Depression and the Great Recession. I am a hard-core capitalist, but I strongly believe in rules to keep greed in check. Don’t get me wrong here. I think moderate levels of greed is good. But pure greed that doesn’t worry about long term consequence just kills the goose with the golden eggs.</p>
<p>PG, He spends quite a bit of time with his friends during school year. That’s not the issue. The issue is the 6 hours in school. It is not beneficial to him of course and he doesn’t learn anything, so he would rather stay home and play the piano or do math or play squash or play the cello or write essays or read non-fiction … what have you. The part of school that is interesting to him is break time and playing soccer after all. The classoom is pure torture. I can sympthize as I was just like him growing up. The same experience continued in college.</p>
<p>Now, he went to a very rigorous music camp over summer and learned every bit of it. I think he will be much happier when we switch him to a conservatory prep school. He plays very well, but he doesn’t know that much music theory as we haven’t been able to coach him on that. So he will be challenged in class, which I think will be a good thing. I think we uined regular academics for him by pushing him way up too fast.</p>
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<p>So homeschool.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is healthy for a kid to not have exposure to other kids.</p>
<p>I don’t know any homeschoolers who raise their kids in a bubble.</p>
<p>I think homeschoolers are a bit weird.</p>
<p>PG, hmmm, I need to learn the politically correct language it seems. This is what I was thinking about. What if I just go and state the facts, that the kid is bored out of his mind and doesn’t want to come to school any more, and it is really becoming a problem which I don’t know how to solve, then ask for guidance? Will that work?</p>
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<p>Pot, meet kettle. :rolleyes:</p>